Let's talk about Inside Out
I suppose I should get the obvious pun out of the way: this is a very emotional movie. Before I really start though, I think we should talk about some semantics. "Original" does not mean "good." Also "original" does not really mean "creative." Original things are usually creative, but creative things don't really need to be entirely original. Why did I bring this up? Because it's giving this movie some criticism it doesn't really deserve. We've had media go into someone's head and interact with their emotions (Psychonauts). We've had someone's inner workings be expanded to be a facility or a city (Osmosis Jones). So Inside Out isn't the most original thing in the world, but it still has a lot of creativity. Actually, it features a lot more mastery than it does creativity and we'll be talking about that quite a bit. It may not be "original" but it's my favorite Pixar movie, and quite possibly my favorite movie in general. I really want to talk about the inner workings of this movie, so if you haven't seen it yet you can stop reading here, and go watch it. Trust me, I'm still kicking myself for not seeing Wreck-It Ralph in theaters. So yeah... Pixar is good again. Honestly, can we stop pretending that it's been like forever since Pixar's released a good movie? Toy Story 3 came out in 2010. That was only five years ago. Most dark ages last a lot longer than that. I mean take Disney after Walt died. It's beginning (Aristrocats) was 1970. It ended with Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988. So, let's talk about Inside Out. And let's talk about how badly this could have failed. Think about it on concept: we have five main characters who are constantly in one emotion. Take it from me that a main character who is constantly happy all the time can get annoying very fast. Not to mention that there's a comic relief character I wasn't expecting (I didn't see him in the trailers) and at first glance, he kind of reminded me of Hairy Scary. But he ended up being one of the best comic relief characters that I've ever seen in an animated film. Not as good as the Genie from Aladdin, but far above the usual standard. The most important aspect to why this film works is that it knows each of the emotions' purposes. This is obviously important for the moral, but it's also incredibly important to the story and not making the movie tedious. I'd also like to point out that all of the emotions chosen except for Joy, are usually portrayed as negative emotions, the ones we don't want. However, most people know the positive sides to fear, anger, and even disgust (which seems to have been combined with the scrapped emotion "pride"). So, the movie puts Joy and Sadness together. Not only do their personalities play off of each other brilliantly for obvious reasons, but it helps the moral of the movie. Sadness has a good side and happiness has a bad side. I mean, animated films have been trying to teach this lesson in a meta way since at least Bambi. For once though, animation had the power to take it literally. You know, like how Psychonauts took being paranoid delusional and how this movie took becoming catatonic. That brings me to something... The story more-or-less seems to have learned from all of the mistakes of Cars 2. For instance, the lesson that stood out to me the most is "keep it simple, stupid." In Cars 2, the entire world was at stake and the main character didn't seem to really care. Take a look at most of the good Pixar movies, and what's at stake. In the Toy Story movies, if they fail, more-or-less Andy loses his favorite toy/toys. In Ratatouille, the only real failure option is that a restaurant gets shut down. While not being totally necessary, this usually allows the most important aspect of a Pixar story: it's deeply personal. In the grand scheme of things, the events of Finding Nemo, Up, or Inside Out don't really matter. But these stories are amazing because of how personal they are. We can easily relate to the characters. We want them to succeed because we can easily see what's at stake for them. Something we couldn't really do for... actually, come to think about it, either of the Cars movies. Inside Out is the most deeply personal Pixar story so far because it provides direct introspection to the emotions involved in a simple event. The stakes are just high enough in the real world to provide adequate suspense for the audience. Let's talk comic relief, shall we? In any given animated movie since the past ever, my best guess is that your least favorite character is the comic relief, especially in the 2000's. We've got our Maters and our Paulie Shore robots added in to keep kids distracted, or in some very bad cases, to merely pander. Sometimes they're tolerable or even likable like Timon & Pumbaa, and sometimes they're the worst part of the movie, like the gargoyles in Hunchback. No matter what though, they seem completely useless to the story. There were very few exceptions, like Dory from Finding Nemo, or the Genie from Aladdin. But in this recent decade, comic relief characters are, well more or less growing up. It kind of started with giving them deep backstories, like Vanellope (Wreck-It Ralph) or actually being given the responsibility of holding the emotional center, like Ray (Princess and the Frog). When they're not an afterthought like the gargoyles, they seem to have a lot more effort invested in them. The comic relief in this movie is Riley's imaginary friend Bing Bong, who more or less starts out by talking and acting like Koosey from Dexter's Lab, but he becomes a lot better. Let's start with the obvious thing here: he only screws up one thing in the entire movie (that actually has any real impact on the plot). There's a scene where they go into some abstract thought chamber, that he himself did not know what it did. Speaking of which, I don't think you'd be able to do something like that scene in a 2D film. After that, you're expecting him to screw up. A lot. "Bing Bong, hold these important items and don't lose them." They literally did that in the movie. You can probably guess what I was thinking at that moment. But, no, he actually didn't lose them. He was holding onto it as security took him away because of what the heroes ended up doing. After the first instance of failure, he's constantly helpful. And he even becomes what allows the movie's moral to come through. Remember that cliche in How to Train Your Dragon 2 that would have severely harmed the movie if they wen't with it? You know, if that dead guy came back to life because happy ending? I'm glad that that cliche is finally dead. Honestly, it was really, really well executed here. Although wouldn't it be great that if in one of those brief scenes that Pixar shows during their credits that Joy was pushing Riley towards an interest in Astronomy? Speaking of that, this movie talks to emotions in a similar way that To the Moon does. It gives us all of the important moments of a person's life, and the emotional context. It allows us to care about a character in a way more deep than we would have otherwise. And yes, the movie has a lot of sad moments. But don't worry, it's perfectly counter-balanced with humor. Surprisingly, the inside of a child's head isn't filled with the desire for fart jokes and boogers. Who knew? They actually took inspiration from reality by the way. The actors of the emotions and the actual animation really brings the characters to life in a way that I've very rarely seen in a big budget picture. A lot of the slapstick in the movie takes clear inspiration from old shorts like the ones made by Chuck Jones and it really shows. There'a a lot more that I'd love to go into, but I can't review it until it comes out on DVD. And please don't take the DVD release an an invitation to start asking me when I'm going to review it. I'll get to it when I'll get to it. Like, I just finished writing the script to my Mary & Max review, despite starting this review in Whenvender. Movies, even good ones take a long time for me to review and to keep it meaningful. Category:Miscellaneous